Total digression on the bull in FAIL-SAFE

[Mark Kohut]

I have perused the 1962 novel itself, this symbol truncated (but accurate) in the movie...
 
In it, the 'good', compassionate guy has been having this nightmare although he never attended a bullfight. 
The stands are full of his colleagues and he keeps trying to learn who the matador is. In the dream, the bull is
also flayed. [Chapter is titled The Flayed Bull] He wakes up sweating, scared. 
 
At the end, ---very minor but no major spoiler---he, awake in a very difficult situation of horrible responsibility,
realizes "The matador is me. Me." as he dies,  perhaps like the bull.....
 
I believe Hemingway killed himself in 1961? 
 
 
 

From: Edward A Moore <edmoorester at gmail.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: More bull on TR

RE: More bull on TR

I breezed over "golden bough" and found no bull sacrifice
but they have a ram section so will keep u posted. . . .

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0692Mithras.php

This is only according to this guy. .


"Both Mithraism and Christianity had symbolic sacrifice—Christianity of a man,
Mithraism of a bull. Shedding animal blood was a substitute for shedding
human blood. The bull could be changed for a ram. The ram, in the
Persian Zodiac,
is a lamb, so the Mithraic sacrifice was of a lamb, just as Jesus is
the Paschal Lamb."




Allright. . .jeez. . .reviewing "Apocalypse Now" in brain. . .
so . . .uhh. . .Marlon Brando as Kurtz was the sacrifice
cuz he got killed in juxtaposition to bull sacrifice?

I am more confused now than less


http://www.reocities.com/astrologyages/mithraismandprecession.htm

there is even in a close up shot somewhere where the scorpion is on
the genitals. .

ed
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